New York, Baby

From August 3 through 7, Josh and Jake, Grandpa D. and I went to New York. We stayed with Mike and Mel, who have been living there for the summer while Mike completes an intership with Citigroup. It was a crazy trip that involved dozens of subway rides and miles of walking. We had a blast and managed to see a Yankees game, Grand Central Station, Times Square, Lincoln Center, Central Park, FAO Schwartz, The Museum of Natural History, Riverside Park, The Empire State Building, The Statue of Liberty, Grimaldi's Pizza, the Brooklyn Bridge, Ground Zero, Wall Street, Federal Hall, and probably a few other things I can't remember. Thanks to Mike and Mel for showing us such a great time. The boys had a blast with Tyler, and it was great that we got to do the trip with Dad. Here are a few of the highlights.

First things first, A-Rod was stuck on 499 career home runs for about 10 games before we went. I snapped this picture during the first swing of his first at bat of the game--money. This is number 500. You can see him finishing his swing, the pitcher finishing his motion, and the ball above the pitcher's head. It was great. The boys loved it, and we made friends with total strangers in the celebrations after. Sorry PJ, we didn't make it to Shea. We can see minor league ball here in SLC.

Here are J., Josh, Tyler and Dad at the subway stop outside Yankee Stadium.

At the Stadium. Notice Jake's hair. That kid can sweat like no one's business. And it was hot.

The cousins at Times Square.

At Wall Street.

On the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty

On top of the Empire State Building

With Mike, Tyler and Dad at Riverside Park

Catching fireflies in Riverside Park. The boys loved this.

Josh ordered this giant hot dog at Grand Central Station. I told him I'd give him $20 if he could eat the whole thing. He ate all but an inch of it and spent about 1/2 hour in the bathroom later than night on the verge of vomiting it up--classic.

After going to church at Lincoln Center we wait to catch the subway back to Harlem.

After having pizza at Grimaldi's, we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge back to Manhattan. Josh probably asked 500 questions about the bridge on the way. We covered such topics as the engineering of suspension bridges, why suspension bridges are best for busy waterways, gothic architecture, caissons, caisson disease, and on and on and on. Don't think I wasn't just making answers up by the end. We went back to the apartment later that day and looked some of his questions up on Wikipedia. After the walk, Josh said that New York was a better place to vacation than Disneyland and Hawaii because, "Everything in New York is special and rare." My 9 year old son. He and Jake took the two pictures on the right; they turned out to be pretty good ones.

The cousins in front of the Museam of Natural History. Jake loved it. He wanted me to take pictures of everything inside. He was so well behaved on the trip. We must have walked at least 5-10 miles every day, and he never complained.













In Central Park

FAO Schwartz